Who puts out the best seed catalogs? i.e., whose seeds are better than others.
The only company I've ever ordered from is Shepherds Seeds. Thanks

Snowfeet1 wrote:

Who puts out the best seed catalogs? i.e., whose seeds are better than others.
The only company I've ever ordered from is Shepherds Seeds. Thanks


For HERBS: http://www.richters.com/

Kevin

J. L. Hudson, Seedsman


"Snowfeet1" wrote in message
...
Who puts out the best seed catalogs? i.e., whose seeds are better than
others.
The only company I've ever ordered from is Shepherds Seeds. Thanks

Try our catalog.

--
See our website at http://www.southernexposure.com

"Snowfeet1" wrote in message
...
Who puts out the best seed catalogs? i.e., whose seeds are better than
others.
The only company I've ever ordered from is Shepherds Seeds. Thanks

For herbs, I'd strongly recommend Garden Medicinals and Cullinaries managed
and operated by Dr. Jeff McCormack. I think they're at
www.gardenmedicinals.com.


--
Please see our website of gardening products at
http://www.southernexposure.com

Peace

Cricket
"it's me" wrote in message
...
Snowfeet1 wrote:

Who puts out the best seed catalogs? i.e., whose seeds are better than
others.
The only company I've ever ordered from is Shepherds Seeds. Thanks


For HERBS: http://www.richters.com/

Kevin

In article 8Eb%9.9354$yU6.4349@fe01,
"Cricket" wrote:

For herbs, I'd strongly recommend Garden Medicinals and Cullinaries managed
and operated by Dr. Jeff McCormack. I think they're at
www.gardenmedicinals.com.


I was trying to orer from them but their online catalogue has no
pictures and takes forever to navigate. You have to keep going thru new
page after new page to find culture and zone information. I have a
feeling that the website is designed by a non-gardener. lol

Having worked for Dr. Mac a few years back, I can assure you he is a
gardened. I guess it depends if what you want is a high priced web page
with flashy pictures or high quality seeds with as much info as a good book
included.

"Juliet" wrote in message
...
In article 8Eb%9.9354$yU6.4349@fe01,
"Cricket" wrote:

For herbs, I'd strongly recommend Garden Medicinals and Cullinaries
managed
and operated by Dr. Jeff McCormack. I think they're at
www.gardenmedicinals.com.


I was trying to orer from them but their online catalogue has no
pictures and takes forever to navigate. You have to keep going thru new
page after new page to find culture and zone information. I have a
feeling that the website is designed by a non-gardener. lol

In article oGe%9.9480$yU6.5001@fe01, "Cricket"
wrote:

Having worked for Dr. Mac a few years back, I can assure you he is a
gardened. I guess it depends if what you want is a high priced web page
with flashy pictures or high quality seeds with as much info as a good book
included.

Janet said the web designer was probably not a gardener; she did not
criticize the seller. But that aside, the simpler & less flashy a website,
the faster it will load. So if a site is stripped down in content &
nevertheless a slow-load, the problem is often flawed web design.
Sometimes the original set-up is "purchased" from a self-proclaimed expert
webmaster who only pretended to know what he or she was doing; or there
was no webmaster at all, & someone lacking even the rudiments of actual
webdesign relied exclusively on a code-generator which adds all sorts of
unneeded code that slows everything down. Which isn't an accurate
assessment of gardenmedicinals.com, but it does mean more broadly on the
web, there's no reason of "quality" to have a good product but an
annoyingly slow & unpleasant catalog.

Adding a single jpg to give people an idea of what a plant looks like is
NOT sufficient to slow down a page's load-time, but the front page of
gardenmedicinals.com has EIGHT jpgs, three in the banner alone, & not
counting a broken link to a ninth jpg. It gives a bad first impression &
should be changed to become one of the fastest-loading pages. But I found
this the only overtly badly designed page, so too bad it's the first page
anyone sees.

I visited the site twice. The first time I didn't find most of
gardenmedicinals.com's pages all that slow or hard to navigate. The
load-time was absurdly slow for the front page (which gives people the
first impression, so should have been the fastest page of all, so that
should be changed. The load times elsewhere at the site were quick enough,
such as in the unsecured catalog. Even the "secured shopping" catalog
didn't bog down much, though memory MIGHT be better aportioned for the
cart, which is something only the server carrying the cart can improve.
The pop-up windows for cultivation information I rather liked & they
didn't slow down the function of the catalog as a whole, so struck me as
an acceptable choice rather than an unecessary extra link; but I do think
they used the pop-ups for TOO MUCH information & some basic cultivation
requirements should've been in the main catalog listing without having to
call forth the pop-up. I did think many parts of the catalog should be
consolidated -- "lists" consisted of as few as one to three items -- a
"list" of one item from which they link to the actual item is particularly
absurd, but any list of three or less is kind of silly for adding
unnecessarily to the sequence of pages a customer has to lumber through.

But if Juliet experienced slow-loads overall, it might've in this case
been a busy time of day which can slow down even very rapid-loading sites,
as the site isn't of itself badly designed. Still, I returned to the site
a day later, & the catalog took forever to load page by page. I have DSL
so these slowloads are usually the fault of the source, & the secured
catalog's server would seem to have gone cheap proportioning enough memory
to insure easy access even during somewhat busy times of the day. That's
not the fault of the medicinal plants company, but if they never rattle
their server's cage for adequate memory (or refuse to pay for extra
memory) they may be a slow-load whenever OTHER companies from the same
server are getting the traffic.

I don't see the reason not to include images of plants, so agree with
Juliet on that score. Few people automatically know what EVERYthing looks
like, & pictorial reminders would be so easy to add. Plus they infer some
unique properties to some of their heirloom varieties, which should be
shown. Catalogs with rapid turnover of stock, from nurseries continuously
running out of some things while adding other things, it can be impossible
to keep a pictorial catalog up to date. But this company seems to have a
fairly static & predictable stock, so they could do it, & should do it.

In general, the company looks very cool & if taken at their word, are
concerned with herbs & gardening & environment in all the best ways. If
someone dislikes the function of their web catalog, there's a printed
catalog one could obtain from them. As I'm more into decorative &
woodland plants rather than culinaries, they don't meet my central needs,
but if I were after some heirloom herbs, I might well try them first.
Their "link library" alone makes them worth bookmarking, they seem to have
put some real thought into which off-site webpages they link to.

-paghat the ratgirl

"Juliet" wrote in message
...
In article 8Eb%9.9354$yU6.4349@fe01,
"Cricket" wrote:

For herbs, I'd strongly recommend Garden Medicinals and Cullinaries
managed
and operated by Dr. Jeff McCormack. I think they're at
www.gardenmedicinals.com.


I was trying to orer from them but their online catalogue has no
pictures and takes forever to navigate. You have to keep going thru new
page after new page to find culture and zone information. I have a
feeling that the website is designed by a non-gardener. lol

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

Snowfeet1 wrote in message
...
Who puts out the best seed catalogs? i.e., whose seeds are better
than others.
The only company I've ever ordered from is Shepherds Seeds. Thanks

I've had good luck with Johnny's, Harris, Park, Jung, Territorial and
Vermont Bean Seed. I make my choice in part on price, in part on
availability of varieties. By now, I have certain ideas of what
varieties work best for me. Unfortunately, I can't get all of them
from one supplier. This year I ordered from three suppliers: Harris,
Territorial and Jung.

For flowers, you can't beat Park, for variety and information. The
seeds come in foil packs, for better keeping. My results have
generally been good. The above are based largely on vegetable seeds. I
tend to grow perennials, so my flower seed needs are minimal.

Guy Bradley
Chesterfield MO
zone 6